Software & Apps - Page 3

We're more used to Windows 11 patches clattering through the door and causing strife thanks to various bugs - including some very odd glitches - and now the latest Windows 10 update appears to be following suit.

Windows 10's patch for March (KB5053606) came with a problem that's already been widely reported, namely the Copilot app being accidentally deleted (a really weird glitch that also affected Windows 11, and Microsoft swiftly resolved).

Aside from that, there's a known issue with some USB printers that Microsoft has admitted, but that's a bug affecting enterprise users, not consumers.

File Explorer just got a big upgrade for Windows 11 users, with performance of the native app being increased following a new update rolled out by Microsoft.

Microsoft announced the performance hike in a new blog post where it explained the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27818 within the Canary Channel includes big improvements to File Explorer, particularly in the area of extracting zipped files.

More specifically, the performance increase will be felt when unzipping a large number of small files. The update to the Insider Build also includes various others fixes such as known problems with the Taskbar and System Tray, the removal of "Suggested Actions" when you have copied a phone number or future date, various crashes and more.

Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 this year and has reminded users of the operating system that its support severance is approaching.

Windows 10 is still the world's most popular operating system according to data gathered by StatCounter, which states Microsoft's previous generation operating system still accounts for 58% of the desktop Windows market share worldwide.

By comparison, Windows 11 accounts for 38%. Microsoft has now begun sending emails out to Windows 10 users to inform them the world's most popular operating system is officially losing support on October 14, 2025, and following that date, machines running Windows 10 will no longer receive critical software updates such as security patches, meaning these machines will exponentially become more vulnerable to malware, and hacking.

CPU-Z's new v2.15 update delivers support for the latest silicon from AMD and NVIDIA, with support for Strix Halo and Krackan APUs, while added GPU support includes the Radeon RX 9070 series and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

Not only that, but CPU-Z now lets you check your GPU and ROP count, just in case you want to make sure your graphics card has the right ROP count, as that's now a thing unfortunately. AMD's new Ryzen AI Max 300 series "Strix Halo" APUs and Ryzen AI 340/350 "Krackan" APUs, as well as the new RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 are all supported in CPU-Z now.

NVIDIA's new Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 are now both supported by CPU-Z, as well as the entire fleet of new EPYC 9000 series CPUs from the monster 192-core, 384-thread EPYC 9965 down to the 8-core, 16-thread EPYC 9015.

Windows 11 users who are keen on talking to Copilot will be pleased to learn that a new feature is now in testing to allow for such conversations to be invoked in a much more convenient way.

Microsoft has announced that Windows Insiders now have access to a press-to-talk capability with the latest (preview) version of the Copilot app from the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft notes that the feature:

In a campaign against Spotify and large tech, Pocket Casts - owned by the company behind WordPress - has made its podcast web player and desktop apps available to users free of charge.

Pocket Casts is a podcast streaming platform and app that allows users to discover, subscribe to, download and listen to podcasts. As detailed on the team's website, Pocket Casts takes a rather ethical approach to its services. "The future of podcasting shouldn't be locked behind walled gardens," the team writes, and this approach has been baked into both the pricing, and the tool itself. "We're making a statement,"

The free offering will allow users to stream any podcast directly from its Web Player, without requiring an account or subscription. Users with accounts will be able to sync playback progress across devices, save subscriptions, and manage their queue more seamlessly.

If you've taken the plunge and ordered a MacBook Air M4, or a new Mac Studio (with M4 Max, or M3 Ultra), when these computers arrive later this week (hopefully), you'll be required to perform a day-one update of macOS.

MacRumors reports that a software update will need to be applied to get your Mac running Sequoia 15.3.1, the latest version of Apple's desktop operating system.

This is because the MacBook Air M4 seemingly arrives with macOS Sequoia 15.2 installed, whereas the Mac Studio is more up to date, and runs macOS Sequoia 15.3, but will still require that bump to version 15.3.1.

Not been able to get Windows 11 24H2 due to having AutoCAD installed? There's some good news from Microsoft for you, then, as the compatibility hold put on some PCs due to having this software has now been lifted.

The bug with Windows 11 24H2 meant that Autodesk's AutoCAD 2022 application might fail to work - simply not launching - in some cases, and this could happen to any version. However, AutoCAD 2023, 2024, and 2025 all remained fine.

The fix has now arrived for the 2022 incarnation, thankfully, and Microsoft wrote in its support document on the matter:

It was only recently revealed that X, formerly Twitter, was experiencing a "massive cyberattack" that resulted in the social media platform being unstable for millions of users around the world.

X owner Elon Musk confirmed the disturbance was a result of a cyberattack in a recent X post where he stated that X faces cyberattacks every day, but this one was conducted with a lot of resources by a coordinated group, possibly even with the involvement of a country. It was shortly after Musk's X post that Fox posted a new interview with Musk where the SpaceX CEO touched on the recent outage of the social media platform, and provided some new information about the cause.

Musk said after some preliminary analysis of the IP addresses linked to the cyberattack it was discovered the majority of them were coming from Ukraine. Musk said during the interview that, at the moment, X isn't sure what happened exactly, but the goal of the attack was to bring down the social media platform. This attack is just one of many that have been launched against Musk's businesses recently, with Tesla dealerships and charging stations being hit by vandals that are presumably in disagreement with Musk's involvement and motivations within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Microsoft debuted the Copilot app for Mac users last week, and this week, the Redmond-based company has thrown a fresh coat of paint onto the Copilot app for Windows users. Introducing, the new and approved Copilot app.

Microsoft explained in a new blog post the Copilot app for Windows 11 has been changed to fall in line with the rest of Windows 11's aesthetic design, with the implementation of a sidebar for separating multiple chats users have with Copilot, native context menus, and an overhauled user interface. Notably, the Copilot app for Windows, when it launched,d was simply a web view of the Copilot website, which came with problems such as delayed responses, missing features for specific users with unknown reasons as to why, and other various minor issues.

Those all seem to be stamped out with the release of the Copilot app, or at least I can report my experience with the app has been quite smooth throughout my time using it (a few days). Additionally, it appears that no features are present on the web version have been lost with the native Copilot app, so you can expect the full functionality with the new app. For those who have never used the Copilot app, users are able to query Copilot with a wide variety of questions either through natural language text or through the Copilot Voice feature. All chats with Copilot will be saved in the sidebar.